The "Google" brand isn't always helpful to Google, and Alphabet gives it some options.

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Have you heard? Google's overarching corporate structure is rebranding itself as "Alphabet." The company known as "Google" is getting slimmed down to a collection of Internet products, and Sundar Pichai, who was previously in senior vice president of "Products" in charge of Chrome, Android, and apps, is now the CEO of Google. Google's triumvirate—Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt—will work full-time on moonshots under the new umbrella company "Alphabet."

It's kind of confusing. Google isn't releasing an official list of what-division-goes-where until its Q4 financial results, and it seems crazy for a company with one of the top brands in the world to not use that brand. Sometimes, though, the "Google" brand can be harmful. The company has become a huge collection of unrelated projects, and the mere mention of the word "Google" throws some regulators into a legislative tizzy. "Alphabet" is a way for Google to clarify some things and separate the company into the way it really works.

Pichai’s opportunity to make “Google” mean something

In the 8-K form that Google filed for the Alphabet transition, Google declares that "Search, ads, Maps, apps, YouTube, Android, and infrastructure" are part of the new, slimmed-down "Google," and "Calico, Nest, Google Fiber, Google Ventures, Google Capital, and Google X" are independent units under "Alphabet." Alphabet isn't a big change in the way Google works, just a formalization of the structure that seems to have been there for years. It's something I've been saying for some time now: Google doesn't function as a single company with a product vision, it's a collection of independent units.

While all the Alphabet companies are independent from Google, everything under the "Google" banner has traditionally worked as an independent unit, too. Search is separate from Android, YouTube is separate from Maps, and so on. These groups shared a single boss—Larry Page—but usually not much else.

Further Reading

This structure is usually the source of most of Google's struggles to deliver a cohesive ecosystem. If you've ever wondered why Google Fiber's TV boxes don't run Android TV or why Google Hangouts updates on iOS first or why Google generally makes two of everything, this is the reason. Product groups inside Google are all independent from one another and don't communicate much.

For another example of Google's siloed units, take a look at its first company-wide initiative ever, Google+. In 2011, when the project was just getting off the ground, Larry Page tied every employee bonus to the success of Google+, which resulted in Google+ being integrated into everything. A message as simple and basic as "work together as a company to launch this new initiative" was so incredibly foreign to Google that Larry Page felt the need to bribe his employees to make it happen. Most of the pressure for Google products to work together seems to come from outside the company rather than inside it. Google products work and look like other Google products mostly because "users expect it" and not much else.

Google's only other unified initiative as a company has been its transition to Material Design, a design language the company debuted at Google I/O 2014. This focus on design was, again, a top-down mandate from Larry Page, and a year later, it still hasn't happened across much of the company's desktop apps. The Material Design Guidelines are pretty comprehensive and serve to not only inform third-parties that want to stick to the design but also the rest of Google. There really is no meeting room where the designers of Google's myriad of products get together and decide what a UI should look like, so the public webpage serves as a research tool for the smaller teams inside Google.

With Sundar Pichai taking over as the new "CEO" of Google, and therefore most of Google's core consumer products, he'll hopefully deliver a more cohesive ecosystem offering. During Pichai's reign over "Chrome, Android, and Apps," Chrome and Android moved closer than ever before. Chrome for Android is giving first-class status to Web apps, Chrome can run Android apps, and the UI for the two products has become very similar. Alphabet allows Larry Page to be fully "checked-out" of the day-to-day Google product stuff while Pichai oversees Google's growth and consistency.

Pichai was elevated to "CEO of Google" at the same time that "Google" was paired down to cover a lot less than it used to, but from what we can tell, his big new responsibilities will be Ads, YouTube, Maps, Search, and Infrastructure, along with smaller projects like Google+, which doesn't seem to have an SVP in charge of it anymore.

Alphabet is boring on purpose

Google has been struggling with communicating this division for years. Investors often ask what self-driving cars have to do with selling ads or why "a search company" bothers with Calico at all. When Google bought Motorola in 2011, the rest of the Android ecosystem freaked out and immediately assumed that Motorola and the Android team were sharing an office at Google headquarters, conspiring against the rest of them. This is why the highest umbrella company is called "Alphabet" and not "Google"—to communicate how siloed everything is. If the Motorola deal was done today, it would probably be "Alphabet acquires Motorola" and the Android ecosystem wouldn't have freaked out as much.

The "Alphabet" umbrella opens the door for the acquisition-happy Google to do even more blockbuster deals if it wants to. "Alphabet acquires Motorola" doesn't quite inspire the same type of scandalous conspiracy theories as "Google acquires Motorola." And perception is definitely the name of the game here. When Google does these acquisitions, the primary roadblocks are usually 1) not angering existing partners and 2) getting the deal approved by regulators, both of which basically boil down to someone's opinion of the newest deal.

Does "Alphabet buys Twitter" have a better chance of getting through regulators than "Google buys Twitter"? We think it does. It's much less of a salacious headline, and the lower interest level should result in less interference from the outside world. This is Google being boring on purpose. Judging by the company's official website, Alphabet doesn't even have a logo.

Google shouldn't lose too much brand equity with consumers, as it looks like all of the consumer-facing stuff is still "Google" branded. The "Google" brand doesn't even live under the "Google" company. Google Fiber, Google X, Google Ventures, and Google Capital are all "Alphabet" companies with "Google" branding. If our "boring" theory is right, things won't rebrand, either. Google Ventures, for instance, is for investing in small startups and is all about hype, so it we expect it to keep the "Google" name. The same goes for Google Fiber, which is designed to grab headlines and scare ISPs into providing better service. We expect Google to only roll out the "Alphabet" branding when it wants to be boring.

Most of Google will still work the way it has worked before, with Pichai getting a few more responsibilities and Page and Brin free to focus on moonshots. While it will be some time before we see how regulators react to the "Alphabet" rebranding, investors have already taken a liking to it, boosting the stock up a several percentage points. So far, the rebrand seems to be working.

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Ron Amadeo
Ron is the Reviews Editor at Ars Technica, where he specializes in Android OS and Google products. He is always on the hunt for a new gadget and loves to rip things apart to see how they work. Emailron@arstechnica.com//Twitter@RonAmadeo